


hollow crown

by m0ette



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Demons, Established Relationship, Kissing, M/M, Mild Blood, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-09
Updated: 2018-04-09
Packaged: 2019-04-20 18:10:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14266716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m0ette/pseuds/m0ette
Summary: There surely must’ve been an easier way.





	hollow crown

The crown slips from the severed head, its gold now dull from all the blood. Demons’ blood, thick and almost black, burns through Johnny’s skin where the gloves don’t cover his hands when he picks it up, wiping a thumb across the dirty spikes. It’s heavy, but not unreasonably so, and the weight of it lies comfortably in his palm.

“There surely must’ve been an easier way,” Ten looks down at the headless remnants of the bastard who dared to call himself the King, and then up, at Johnny. His eyes are red - not that pathetic parody of a color that pooled at his feet, but a true, vivid red, - and if Johnny’s heart weren’t just a remnant of his human life sitting inside his chest without any use or reason, it would certainly skip a beat at the sight.

“There's never an easy way when it comes to you, my love,” Johnny says, the adoration in his voice barely hidden by the teasing.

Ten hears it anyway, and his eyes close with a delighted laugh. The sound of it is light, quickly reaching up to the arched ceilings and echoing back down. “You’re too soft for this place,” he reaches out and brushes his fingertips against the cold of Johnny's cheek. The touch burns Johnny, too, but it's a good kind of pain.

He is right.

“Don’t tell anyone,” Johnny whispers and steps closer, chasing the touch.

The words escaping Ten's mouth are almost inaudible, but Johnny feels them against his lips before Ten breaches the remaining distance. “Your secret is safe with me.”

No one ever kissed Johnny like Ten does, like he's kissing him right now: every grip tight until it hurts, every bite hard until it bleeds; their blood mixes so Johnny can’t tell the distinct taste of Ten’s blood apart from his own anymore.  

Their bodies align; Ten puts his hands on Johnny’s back, bringing him closer, and Johnny melts into the embrace, pressing his mouth to Ten’s and pressing his body against Ten’s. He feels human again, and, like a mere mortal, he can’t possibly resist being kissed like that, so he doesn’t fight it and just kisses Ten anew - open-mouthed, hard, so there’s no uncertainty about it.

People say you can’t experience love again after you die, and yet Johnny loves Ten; he loves him, truly, whatever it means here, down under.

It’s this love that excites him and not the defeated body on the marble floor of the throne room. Ten was absolutely right, as he has always been when it came to him. That’s why the crown in Johnny’s hands belonged to Ten only.

“Let me,” Johnny sighs against his lips, but Ten is as stubborn as he is selfish, so he captures Johnny’s lower lip between his teeth one last time before freeing him. Ten meets his eyes, and, were it someone else, they’d surely be fooled, but Johnny’s no stranger to this innocent look: Ten, however lovely he might have seemed, was a demon, so there is no way in hell he forgot. Johnny loved that about him, too.

“Are you sure?” Ten asks, reaching out to hold Johnny’s hand. Johnny entwines their fingers together, the gesture coming to them naturally.

He raises Ten’s hand and kisses the back of it, his knuckles, his fingertips. “You know already.”

Ten nods curtly and leaves his head bowed down calmly before Johnny, but the tiny tremble in his hand gives his nervousness away. Johnny doesn’t release his grip, squeezing Ten’s palm gently in comfort, and lowers the bloody crown onto Ten’s head with his free hand. What comes after is disappointing - or, at the very least, anticlimactic: there’s no explosion or grand fanfare, not that Johnny expected any of that. The only thing that changes is the thought that, from now on, everything will change.

But the crown becomes Ten: with the gold, and the blood, and all. He’s mesmerizing.

In his own right now, a King.

**Author's Note:**

> check out [the amazing art](https://twitter.com/dadadariyana/status/1090987009039048706) that was born out of my whining about this au almost a year after it's been out.


End file.
